Jason Pritchard

Work is underway to extend the CSW Broadband roll-out of faster fibre broadband to a further 14,600 homes and businesses today (Friday).

In an announcement made by Warwickshire County Council and telecommunications giant BT, the latest expansion will see the high-speed technology becoming available for the first time in areas of Aston Cantlow, Avon Dassett, Edge Hill, Farnborough, Fenny Compton, Great Alne, Little Kineton, Norton Lindsey, Oxhill, Radway, Ullenhall and Upper Tysoe.

Councillor Alan Cockburn, deputy leader of Warwickshire County Council, said: “We recognise the vital importance of superfast broadband for both residents and businesses. In an increasingly global world it is vital that our businesses can compete on a level playing field, and good communications infrastructure is essential to ensure the vitality and sustainability of our local economy.

“It’s a relatively short time since this project started, and a lot has been achieved already. We appreciate that it is frustrating for those who are still waiting for faster broadband, but the team are rolling out the new fibre network just as fast as they can.”

The roll-out will reach 3,600 additional homes and businesses by the end of 2016 and the majority of the remainder by the end of 2017.

Colin Bannon, BT’s regional director for the West Midlands, said: “CSW Broadband is a huge engineering programme but the roll-out is going extremely well. This new phase will ensure even more communities in the most difficult to reach parts of the county are able to access faster fibre broadband.”

It has been nearly two years since since the CSW Broadband partnership started connecting the first premises in Warwickshire, Solihull and Coventry to faster fibre broadband.

Since then, engineers from BT’s local network business, Openreach, have installed 245 new road-side cabinets, making fibre available to more than 43,000 homes and businesses.